Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
I had worn her face for eighteen years.
I had seen that snub nose and those round cheeks every time I caught a glimpse of my reflection.
When Bess bent to speak to the injured girl, she tossed her ruddy-gold plaits over her shoulders.
I had done that, too. She looked exactly as I had in the mortal realm but younger, ’round about the age I was when I first had my women’s courses.
I wondered if Bess were a bit taller than I had been at that age, and if I too had had a tiny freckle next to my right eyebrow.
It is alarming, the details you forget about your own face.
What happens to identical bodies when they do not lead identical lives?
Something hovered in the air between us, crackling like sparks from the fire, pulling me towards her and yet repulsing me at the same time. I could not tell whether Bess, the true Bess, felt the same.
I stared too hard. Amadan let out a hiss, and I tore my gaze away.
Bess ignored Amadan and me in favor of the injured girl, giving her a kerchief and showing her how to pinch her nostrils closed to stop the blood. “It will be all right, Aggie,” she said softly. “Go inside now and wait. I will only be a moment.”
The little girl nodded and ran into the cottage.
Bess locked eyes with one of the minders, the pale peasant girl I attempted to speak to before. “Watch her and let me know if the blood flow increases.” She wagged her finger. “It is not for you, understand?”
The ghost maid nodded and floated her way into the cottage.
Sweet Mab, Bess is Mairi’s daughter. She has the instincts, even never having met her. What couldn’t she have become if she was raised by Mairi herself? Guilt left a foul taste in my mouth. I had deprived her of so much.
Bess turned to us, gesturing after the ghostly minder.
“She is a newer one. The hunger is not so heavily upon her yet. Aggie should be fine.” She clapped her hands together, then put them on her hips.
“Now, what do you have for us today, then, trickster? Cake full of worms? New clothing filled with fleas and mites, hmm? Mead from poisoned honey?”
Dear Mab, we sound just alike. Had sounded just alike. She was a great deal saucier than I had been as a mortal, talking back to the Fool in such a way.
Wait. Cake full of worms? Poisoned mead? I glared at Amadan with eyes fit to burn. Jamie lived among these changelings. I had promised he would be safe. You, Dark Fool, will not make me forsworn.
Heedless of my disapproval, Amadan rolled his eyes, lids heavy with disdain.
“Her Majesty wished to see the changelings.” He sounded like one of my mortal brothers when Mairi asked them to clean their filthy boots outside.
“And now we have seen them, and no one is starving, no one is freezing, and so on and so forth . . .” He trailed off, turning back to his steed.
I placed my hand on his arm. “Not yet.” There was still so much I wanted to say to Bess. Yet the words stuck in my throat.
I wanted to touch her skin, to stroke the cheek that had once been mine. I wanted to embrace her, as if the love once given to me by Mairi Grieve still clung to me and I could transfer it to her. She should have had it all along.
Most of all, I wished to cause her no further distress, and I feared I had no control over that.
I had no doubt she must feel the same combination of attraction and revulsion as I did, now we were both on the same side of the Veil.
The land felt her presence like a bur under a saddle, now I had returned. It was clear she did not belong.
“Bess Grieve.” I spoke it soft, almost like a Christian prayer.
Her eyes narrowed as she tilted her head. “You know who I am.” She sniffed. “Well, of course you do. Here I stand among the changelings, the oldest one by a decade at least. Most changelings wear out their welcome long before.”
She was not old, even by mortal standards, but there was much of life she had missed. Knowing her mother and her father. The harvests and holidays, feasts and saints’ days. Falling in love.
Would it have been with the shepherd as well?
No. That was ours alone.
The ground beneath me began to frost over, the hungry blades of grass turning into sharp prickles of ice.
I could tell myself it was winter returning, that gentler version of the mortal season, where the children had all run and played.
But the cerulean sky dimmed, sharp icicles formed on the tree branches around us, and I could not see the sun.
“I should have returned to Faery sooner,” I admitted. “I became too comfortable in my—in your—mortal skin.”
“My mortal skin?” Bess stroked the birthmark blooming at the side of her throat. “I do not understand. Are you my changeling? On the other side of the Veil—you were me?”
She does not feel it. Not the sense of revulsion, nor the mystical drawing together. I am as nothing to her. Of course, she didn’t feel it. Bess Grieve was only mortal, after all.
“Not by choice,” I said quickly. “Your mother stole me. To protect me from the ones who slew the queen.”
This was the first I’d uttered it aloud, what I suspected of my true mother’s fate. I felt a snap in the air, as though speaking my suspicion aloud had waked something in the world that had slumbered deeply. My eyes flew to the Dark Fool, but he did not react at all.
Bess Grieve stared at me, her expression unreadable, and spoke very quietly. “Did she know I would be the cost?”
My lips parted. I wanted to say “No.” I believed the answer was no. The Mairi Grieve I knew cried out for her child during the long nights of her illness: Oh, where have they taken her? Where has my little Bess gone? Never would she have knowingly left her daughter behind.
But for all my powers, my status as the Queen of Faery, I could not honestly say I knew. So, I pressed my lips together and held my tongue.
Bess’s gaze dropped to the ground, her voice tinged with thorn. “That is what I thought.” So bitter she was, for a maid so young.
But I did not fail to notice the tears at the corner of her eyes.
“The queen lived your life on the other side of the Veil,” Amadan cut in. “You should be honored for the privilege.”
Bess sniffed once and clenched her jaw. “Should I be? I never knew my own mother.” Her gaze flew to me and I could not stand it, I had to look down. “I was raised by ghosts and kept from my family. I waited for my parents to break the spell and banish the changeling in my place. They never did.”
Now it was too late. Mairi Grieve was gone, and she could not return to the house of Eamon Grieve. My doing, whether I intended it or not.
Amadan’s hackles raised, and he surged forth, reaching for Bess. “Do not speak that way to the queen.”
Almost instinctively, my arm shot out to stop him, my fingers emitting a sheer wall of ice. The Fool took a step backward, chin dipped and eyebrows raised.
I pushed it further. “By my order.”
He seethed for a moment, then dropped into a most exaggerated bow. “Do forgive me, Your Majesty.”
My attention returned to Bess. “I am sorry for what you have lost,” I said. There were no words powerful enough for my apology. Only actions would do.
The Dark Fool pulled me to one side. “Your Majesty,” he oozed. “Groveling before a mere mortal is unbecoming a ruler of the fae.”
My eyes shot to True Bess. “There is nothing mere about this mortal.”
Eighteen years she had lived in the Underhill, though the time had not passed as such with her. She’d no parents and, judging from the Dark Fool’s manner, hardly any interest from the high fae at all. But she had taken charge, and made herself a home, unwelcome though she was.
We had more in common than the face we once shared.
Bess narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from me?”
Her words were like a knife in my heart. “I ask nothing from you,” I told her.
She sniffed and looked away.
“No, that isn’t true.” I lifted my chin. “I want you to live a happy life.”
Her laughter came bitter and sharp.
“Fine then,” said the Dark Fool, with an impatient flip of his wrist. “Give her a new gown, build her a castle, send a dozen swains to woo her and we shall be off.”
“I did not ask for your input, Fool.”
He tensed but did not retreat.
Bess pursed her lips.
“Would any of those things make you happy?” I asked her. I highly doubted it. Amadan’s understanding of mortal maidens was purposely shallow.
She shook her head.
“Then what would?”
I could give her anything she wanted: riches, freedom, a beautiful face, an impossibly long life. Anything in my power, I would do for this lass, to make right what was done wrong, to restore her to the place she deserved.
Though it pained me to know, I could never restore her mother to life.
“If you are serious, if you truly mean it . . .” Bess faced me again, eyes unflinching. “I want to go back to the world of man. I wish to go home.”
She spoke plainly, with a weariness born of years spent in a place she did not belong. I knew that feeling.
“I want to be among people. Real people. Not you lot, with your false faces, and semblance of mortality, all your pretty lies.”
Faery gold that turns to dry leaves. Pretty kelpies who drown anyone attempting to ride them. Love talkers who seduce the unwary, leave them pregnant and pining forever more. My people lie with appearances as they never can with their words.
“Send me back to my own kind,” Bess pleaded. “It is where I belong.”
My eyes stung. I stepped towards her and placed both hands upon her head.
“How brave you are, my dear.” I closed my eyes and remembered all Mairi Grieve had taught me.
The herbs and flowers she used. How to prepare them into a tincture; how to wrap a cut and set a broken limb.
All these things I brought to the forefront of my awareness, and slowly, like a benediction, I kissed Bess Grieve upon the forehead.
All this knowledge now belonged to her.
She stepped away, eyes wide, mouth open a little in shock.
“Your Majesty,” whispered the Fool, but I owed him no explanation.
I had no explanation to give.
The cottage door opened, and little Aggie came out, kerchief stuck in her nose.
“Tired of waiting for me, are ye?” Bess asked her softly, putting a hand on Aggie’s back. The little girl leaned against her, suddenly shy.
“If you wish to return to the mortal realm, go with my blessing,” I said. “There is an abandoned shepherd’s hut not far from the forest of Carterhaugh. You could take residence there if you like.” My voice caught. “I do not think the shepherd will ever return.”
But Aggie let out a whimpering protest, clinging to Bess’s skirts.
“Aggie, too?” Bess asked, her voice strained.
I inclined my head.
“And the others?”
Amadan fair seethed. “This is beyond reasonable—”
I cut him off. “Of course. Anyone who wants to go.” My eyes flew to the Fool, sharp as blades. I would not be gainsaid.
Bess watched me, like a mouse might a cat feigning sleep. “I will gather them up, then. Children!”
At her nearly frantic call, the bairns fell in around her, the littlest ones lagging behind.
“Who among you wishes to go home?” she asked.
Little voices peeped up. “Me! Oh, I would. I so want to be with you, Mistress Bess.”
Only Jamie stood apart, hanging back in the corner. Bess beckoned to him, but he shook his head and would not go.
I drew power from the ground beneath me. Lightning surged under my skin; all nature answered to my call. “By oak and ash, by thistle and thorn, I release you from this place, and return you home.”
There came a great gust of wind, scouring my face and making my gown flutter around me. I squinted beneath the fluttering wings of my sleeve, and the snow vanished.
So did the grass. And the sun.
The sky shone red again, and the trees were nothing but tangles of dead limbs. I turned to the Dark Fool, and his skin was gone, teeth gritted in a rictus grin. All around us, the ghostly minders keened, nothing but glowing eyes and gaping maws.
“Your Majesty,” said the corpselike Amadan, as much horrified as horror. “The land must feed, and soon. The changelings are our surety to pay the Teind.”
The changelings. Mere children. I would not allow them to be sacrificed to pay the Teind.
I had done right by Bess Grieve. That was all that mattered.
A warm body thudded into me, grabbing me around the hips. Wee Jamie, the last changeling left.
All at once, the grass returned, the trees grew straight and leafy, the sky was a brilliant blue. Amadan was handsome again, wickedly handsome, save for the dread shading his eyes.
I feared greatly what that might mean.